I’m guessing Sheen figured out that there was no way to redeem his reputation by being contrite and repentent, so he might as well “embrace” the bad-boy image and display it like a badge of honor. It doesn’t really work that well in the real world (unless you are a Hell’s Angel or something like that), but for some reason the rules of reality just don’t apply to Hollywood and celebrity “journalism”.

Factoid: The energy in Marcellus shale gas is equivalent to an 86-billion-barrel oilfield, roughly the size of Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, the world’s largest oilfied. However, the rock-fracturing techniques used to extract shale gas come with significant environmental problems.

Ivory Coast’s tinpot dictator, Laurent Gbagbo, is holed up in his bunker and surrounded by hostile troops. He’s trying to negotiate safe passage for himself and his family.

Gbagbo delayed elections for five years, then when he couldn’t delay them any longer, resorted to violence against his opponent’s supporters. When he lost anyway, he refused to leave office. When diplomatic efforts to negotiate his departure failed, his opponent raised an army to oust Gbagbo by force. Thousands of people, mostly unarmed civilians, died in the ensuing conflict. Gbagbo isn’t one of them — yet — but he should be.

No way should this thug get safe passage. His family, yes, but I say drag Gbagbo before a tribunal and give him a fair trial, then shoot him. Tinpot dictators who kill thousands to hang onto illegimate power shouldn’t survive their violent fall from power. The rule should be, if you don’t leave peacefully, you leave in a box.

obama shows over & over again he is no leader. gitmo still open, no civil trials, still in afghanistan, iraq and now Libya with more to come because of the lame-ass UN. and worst of all, obama’s complete failure to address the debt & deficit in a meaningful way. the republicans are getting waaaaay out in front of obama on the budget. realistic. we cannot keep spending money that does not exist! we cannot keep kicking these major problems down to future generations. i just saw this Reuter’s story on the recent R’s proposal..http://www.reuters.com/article.....1020110405

now this is leadership. doing nothing substantive is cowardice playin’ politics.

charlie sheen is a lunatic..but he’s generally funnier than hell giving the finger to the hollywood elite. i would buy a ticket to his f*cked up show…but i love his sound clips. he may end up killing himself…or perhaps this is the ultimate ruse on hollywood?? time will tell.

Republican attacks on public workers, like everything else Republicans do, will end up costing taxpayers more money for poorer quality services in the future.

Why? Because public workers are fed up with getting kicked around by know-nothings and are ready to walk.

“We make $35,000 a year, and they want to throw stones at public workers,” said Roland Bell, 44, a sanitation worker in Wilmington, Del.

“This isn’t the career that my mom went into 35 years ago,” said Greta Voit, 27, a high school physics teacher in New Berlin, Wis.

Republican “proposals have left workers grappling with potential pay and benefit cuts, changes to working conditions and accusations that they don’t work hard. For some, it’s been enough to question whether they want to continue in careers they love if it means facing insults and pay cuts.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: The myth Republicans try to sell to uninformed and gullible citizens is that public workers are lazy, unproductive, and enjoy cushy employment-for-life in highly paid jobs with fabulous benefits. Not one single element of that pack of lies is true. Except for a few high-profile managers, most public servants are overworked, underpaid, and have nothing like the job security the public sector used to offer. Everyone I’ve known who worked for our own state government retired as soon as they could. None of them liked their jobs, and the pay and benefits weren’t good enough to keep them there, once they became financially able to walk away. With Republicans working overtime to make public jobs even lousier, we’re going to get to a point where we can’t get people to take public sector jobs at all. Which is exactly what Republicans want, because when public services collapse, their private contractor cronies will be more than happy to fill the vacuum — at double the cost to taxpayers.

It sure isn’t. And what it means is, people will be deterred from public careers in the future.

Republican liars peddle a myth to the gullible and uninformed. This myth is that public workers are lazy, unproductive, highly paid, and enjoy cushy lifetime jobs with fabulous benefits. None of that propaganda screed is true. The lot of most public workers is to be overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, and not infrequently, abused by a public that thinks paying taxes gives them a license to mistreat people who work for public agencies.

Now, Republicans are trying to cut pay, take away benefits, and deprive public workers of any say about working conditions. Inevitably, this will drive people away from already-unattractive public careers. Which is exactly what Republicans want, because when public services collapse, their contractor cronies will be more than happy to fill the vacuum — at double the cost to taxpayers.

Today is election day in Wisconsin, and several high-profile races, including electing a Milwaukee County executive to fill the vacancy left by Scott Walker when he went to the governor’s mansion, should assure a high turnout.

The high-profile race is, of course, the race for a Republican-held seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Currently, Republicans control the court, 4-3. If the incumbent, Prosser, loses then Democrats will have a majority on the court. Prosser, a clown who called the chief justice a “bitch,” is vulnerable.

In a bizarre campaign twist, Prosser today accused his opponent of having already made up her mind on Walker’s union-stripping bill, which is sure to reach the court, because of irregularities committed by Republican legislators in ramming it through the state house in violation of the state’s open meetings law and through the state senate without a quorum. As if Prosser hasn’t already made up his mind …

Today’s election is important for another reason. It’s a way for recall organizers, who have only 60 days to collect a fairly large number of signatures, to connect with motivated voters. They’re setting up tables outside polling places and inviting voters to sign recall petitions against the Republican legislators responsible for this travesty. Many are.

Polls show that Wisconsin voters support the public unions by a factor of 2-to-1, and that if a do-over election were held today, Scott Walker would lose by a hefty margin. The presence of high-profile races on the ballot assures a hefty turnout, which generally favors Democrats, especially in Democratic-leaning Milwaukee, the state’s population center. All of this adds up to a lot of recall signatures by day’s end.

Although it’s too early to predict the outcome, the path to defeating the GOP’s ham-fisted effort to undermine an important base of Democratic Party support by destroying public unions is clear: Democrats are trying to recall 8 GOP state senators, and need to win only 3 of those seats to flip control of the senate to their party, which would make it impossible for Walker to re-enact his anti-union bill if the state supreme court strikes it down because of the irregularities in its enactment. And, next year, Walker himself will be a target of a recall. There is a very real prospect that the union-stripping bill rammed through by Republican legislators will be nullified, some of those legislators will lose their seats, and Walker will end up with nothing to show for his and his party’s efforts and huge financial investments. That would make him look like a bad investment to big-money backers like the Koch brothers, who might be reluctant to throw any more money at saving Walker’s political career — and he could end up in permanent retirement.

There’s more at stake in Wisconsin than just union rights, though. Wisconsin Republicans also are trying to strip students of their voting rights, and to suppress Democratic votes by passing onerous ID requirements that would discourage the elderly and poor from voting. The right to vote is itself at stake in today’s election, which gives those whose rights are threatened a very powerful incentive to go to the polls today — and sign those recall petitions on their way out.

It sure isn’t. And what it means is, people will be deterred from public careers in the future.

Republican liars peddle a myth to the gullible and uninformed. This myth is that public workers are lazy, unproductive, highly paid, and enjoy cushy lifetime jobs with fabulous benefits. None of that propaganda screed is true. The lot of most public workers is to be overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, and not infrequently, abused by a public that thinks paying taxes gives them a license to mistreat people who work for public agencies.

Republicans are now trying to cut pay, take away benefits, and deprive public workers of any say about working conditions. Inevitably, this will drive people away from already-unattractive public careers. Which is exactly what Republicans want, because when public services collapse, their contractor cronies will be more than happy to fill the vacuum — at double the cost to taxpayers.

Courageous. Serious. Gutsy. I imagine that within a few days this will be the consensus view of the entire Beltway punditocracy. A plan dedicated almost entirely to slashing social spending in a country that’s already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world — well, what could be more serious than that?

“Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) proposed budget plan would cut $5.8 trillion from the budget in the next decade, upending Medicare and Medicaid and gutting many social programs. But Ryan’s budget treads lightly in … defense.

“Ryan’s 2012 budget essentially accepts the president’s proposal for a $553 billion defense budget and $117 billion in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Some guy mapped out the words used in the online dating profiles of single people, and broke them out into maps.

So who has the “happiest” Congressional district in the U.S.??? It’s the Washington 7th, consisting of Seatte & Vashon Island, and represented by Jim McDermitt(D), which contains both the happiest single men and women in the country!

The loneliest men are in the GA 9th (across the state line from where I grew up).

The kinkiest women are (a tie) between the CA 16th (near San Jose’), and WV 3rd (southern W. Virginia). The least kinky women are from Montana.

Surprisingly, the most virgin women are from LA 2nd (New Orleans), as are the least virgin men. I’ll let you try to figure that one out. The least virgin women are from the TX 29th (Houston). (So much for morals of Republican women).

And WA 4th (central Washington) ranks as having the least-kissing single men in the country.

Lately, GOP propaganda has been raising our awareness that public workers live high on the hog compared to the rest of us.

Take, for example, Westport Connecticut fire dispatcher Ken Gilbertie, who makes $54,000 a year (plus whatever overtime he can get) and describes himself as “lower middle class.” I suppose you are, if you live on a salary like that in a town where the median home price is $1.2 million.

Recently, Westport’s town council rejected a new contract negotiated by town officials and the firefighters’ union as too generous, even though union members agreed to pay more of their health costs.

The real reasons why Westport can’t afford to pay its firefighters a living wage? Here’s two:

1. Between 1998 and 2010, town indebtedness increased from $3.1 million to $170 million, to pay for infrastructure improvements; and

2. Property tax rates in the millionaire enclave of Westport are $14.80 per $1,000, compared to $43.90 and $72.79, respectively, in the working-class towns of Hartford and New Haven.

Yep, they gotta short the firefighters, so millionaires don’t have to pay taxes.

Ken Gilbertie makes $54,000 a year as fire dispatcher in Westport, Connecticut, which he calls “lower middle class.” I suppose it is, if you live in a town where the median home value is $1.2 million.

Westport’s town council recently rejected a proposed contract negotiated between the firefighters’ union and town officials, even though the firefighters agreed to pay more for their health care, because according to the council their constituents are doing less well so town workers should do less well, too.

So Obama is running for prez. Big Whoop. I’m having trouble building up any interest in campaigning or giving him my money this time around. IMHO, he’s got the marginal issues right like DADT and failed completely on the huge important issues like Health Care Reform, Wall Street Reform, Gitmo, Libya, or Afganistan. The only thing that is going to get Obama re elected is the bat shit crazy and or downright evil person the republicans are likely to nominate. A real sane moderate republican would get elected in a heartbeat. Luckily that person won’t make it through the primary.

I heard on Prava, I mean the Truth, some radio guy talk about how liberals New Deal and the social safety nets have gotten rid of the “Opportunity society” Some how the time of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” has been re-branded an Opportunity society. Amazing.

@31 That’s pretty much where I am, too. Obama figures we’ll vote for him because we have no other place to go. Yeah, he’ll probably be re-elected when voters find out the GOP candidate wants us all to pay a 30% federal sales tax so millionaires don’t have to pay any income taxes. Yawn. Another four years of Wall Street supervising the implementation of “hope and change.”

Something else I noticed while listening on Prava, I mean the Truth. I agreed with the guy, we are in a fiscal crisis. There must be cuts. But he didn’t say one word about raising taxes on millionaires, or closing corporate loopholes or penalizing off shoring. It was just cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Polling placings closed in Wisconsin a few minutes ago. At stake is control of the state supreme court — and the fate of Gov. Walker’s union stripping bill. Local media sources report that conservatives outspent liberals, $2.2 million to $1.4 million, on TV ads in what is now the most expensive judicial campaign in state history. But conservatives don’t have 100,000+ angry public union members in their camp. This should be interesting when results are tallied and announced later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

#35. I donno. Eventually Obama or his successor will taken the base for granted for too long that the base will snap and vote for Palin and her type, just to clear the decks of milk toast Republican lite dems and get some real progressives in after 4 years of republican hell.

Obama will have no trouble getting reelected, no matter who the party of batshit crazies nominates. The midterms were an anomaly. The center of this country is considerably to the left of the GOP’s power center. Presidential elections get more people out. The batshits lose out.

I don’t think it was an anomaly. People were expecting change and got a republican lite. I think if Obama and dems keep lying to the progressives, they will give up and either stay home or go somewhere else.

All alternate routes (3rd party, not voting, etc.) end up at worse than the war criminal from Texas (Connecticut) we just endured. Have you forgotten already? Have you not grasped how insane the other side has become?

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